Rights to Thirst for Blood
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Yuuto wonders what triggered that bloodlust...because he doesn't think he's justified compared to people like Shun.


**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, #62 – write a fic with no dialogue.

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**Rights to Thirst for Blood**

Shun had an extra reason to thirst blood. Compared to that, Yuuto had nothing at all. He was already an orphan. Already alone. He'd had lots of friends, people he'd made smile and smiled with – but in a blink of an eye all of that was gone.

They'd all had people they smiled with. Some were lucky. Some had managed to stick together, to fight their way out of the worst of it. And then there were some like Shun who'd lost something closer than smiles, something closer than friends.

There were few who'd lost family but had managed to save themselves. And those few shrunk until eventually it was only Shun. Shun who wouldn't stop no matter what was in his path because it was Ruri. Because it was his sister. And perhaps the only thing keeping him reigned in was that Ruri might still be alive.

As for Yuuto, there was nothing. Just people screaming. _Children_ screaming. Children he always saw but didn't know by name. Children he'd smiled at, smiled with, but never really talked to. Did he have the same right? Children – even the Fusion dimension had children. Children like ones he'd seen, arrogant on the surface but scared within. That child have been like that. Angry too easily. Scared too easily.

He couldn't thirst for blood at the sight of that, and yet –

And yet he'd been heading there with bloodlust in his mind. Overwhelming bloodlust. His three opponents were already gone. This one was next.

That same child he'd let go before because he couldn't –

Maybe he hadn't actually let him go. Maybe he'd only thought he'd had, but in reality he'd been holding on, clinging –

It made him wonder what would happen if he met Yuugo again – Yuugo who claimed he wasn't a pawn of fusion but had such a name…

Or if he ever saw that boy from the fusion dimension. The boy Shun had already beaten down once. Who Yuuto had tried not to beat down again, so soon – but Shun was struggling now. Maybe that was a mistake.

Or had the mistake been that rage that had consumed him?

A rage that couldn't even match to people like Shun because he hadn't had any family to lose?

What was the guilt now? Was it because that rage so disgusted him and so terrified him? Or was it simply because of Yuuya? Because his rage had hurt him? Had terrified him, and his friends?

Or was it because he hadn't been able to help his comrade in the end?

But he didn't think he was angry about that. He only felt drained now. Hardly there. Sounds and feelings came to him as echoes, in the darkness. Usually, he could make out flashes too. But not then.

He didn't think, seeing Shun's grief, and those others that had been there then, that he'd ever be able to feel the same. Feel justified in it. _Feel_ it – because the desperation for saying alive outweighed the blood. He'd never loved so deeply. He'd never known his family. He'd always been a product of his duelling, and of the city. Children coming and going. Some joining the city like him. Others gaining a true family along the way. All of them smiling. All of them seeing each other's faces…but not talking, not knowing names…

And he'd almost thought it was a mercy he hadn't known their names. Because it hurt just a little bit less.

Then, those who'd survived had banded together and that changed. There were names. And bonds. And pain when one by one they fell.

Maybe that was the source of the anger he hadn't thought he so deeply had. Something that bit in to him. Made him bleed. Made him want blood.

But he'd still found himself unable to strike back then – at that little boy from the fusion world. Something had changed _after that_…but all that had happened after that was duelling…and losing…and somehow winding up here, inside of Yuuya…

Was that it? His noble last words had been said with a lack of understanding? Something seeing that army from the Fusion dimension had triggered, released? Who was Yuugo? Was he really, as he said, uninvolved? Or was he a Fusion pawn like they'd thought all this time? Had he done something?

Or was it he himself, who hadn't been able to accept this loss of his even though he had taken it full on?

He'd thought himself better than that. Accept losses. Grow from them. Don't let them poison the heart, poison the soul. Losing a duel wasn't like losing a comrade, or a family member. Unless you died. But death was absolute, wasn't it? He didn't know anymore. He wasn't sure what he was.

He supposed he'd only know if he – and Yuuya – ever saw Yuugo again and if something came from it.

And maybe not even then, if Yuugo truly had no clue.

And maybe not if he became consumed again. Nonsensical. And especially not if there was nobody to stop him, stop _them_, this time.

He still didn't think he had an excuse for that senseless rage in the face of those that did but weren't consumed.


End file.
